us over our unstable financial situation so we're going to hash out all the details about he said she status you with financial correspondent lauren lyster and is the government just one step closer to even more eavesdropping encouraging government subcommittee to wiretap internet communications meeting that they could be watching everything you do online even those peer to peer communications so discuss the potential repercussions of a federal surveillance program with that when the call up from seen it and know friday would be complete without a happy hour so i'll be joined by lucy kept up and jenny churchill to discuss some hot stories this week like the latest sexting at lingo for anyone who's out of the loop but we're saving that for the end of the show now to move on to this night's top story. protests continue today in wisconsin where thousands of teachers public workers students other supporters have been protesting in front of and inside the capitol building some camping out overnight now it's all response to

governor scott walker's plan to take away bargaining rights from public sector unions somebody he claims will help close the state's budget gap but it's also becoming an all out political war president obama has expressed that he feels that this is an assault on unions scott walker said that he is not going to be bullied and the unrest is spreading as a number of other states have similar legislation on the table and today workers in connecticut and tennessee also took to the streets so the question is which side is going to win we're discussing with me is j.p. frere soucy editor of commentary for the washington examiner and michaele labor journalist and contributing editor for in these times gentlemen thank you so much for being here this rather than you know i've got to say this is pretty incredible because you don't see this many americans going out into the streets every day you know we constantly talk about the fact that you see so many protests perhaps in europe obviously right now we're seeing them spread across the middle east but it's not an everyday occurrence for america. so does that tell you that there's

a real battle going on here i think absolutely there is a real battle going going on although although i find it interesting you're saying that about this but i don't recall you saying that about the tea parties now that i covered plenty of you know no matter what i'm saying what i'm saying is that this is not unprecedented that people are you sad isn't people coming out in one state for a tea party rally there was actually when i was in st louis missouri that was the number but but but the real issue and we both understand this is that is a whole discussion of where where unions play and you know what what kind of benefits can they enjoy what will they be able to do to take care of their families they're obviously going to be very concerned about that but part of the problem is that you have too much taxpayer dollars going to support the benefits of public sector union employees as opposed to what you what you see in the private sector is just not even not even close to equal eighty five percent of employers in the area of madison wisconsin they will to provide health care people paid paid

more into their health care and public sector unions and it's only fair just to ask at a time of a budget crunch the public sector union step up but public sector unions as far as i'm concerned don't really have a problem stepping up because they're they're often the ones that have to step up if there ever is a budget crisis and they're the ones who have to deal with a salary freeze right or with a wage cut while take away the bargaining rights for the future it's simply about power and it's about taking out the largest part of the democratic party which is organized labor the right to collectively bargain for public employees something in trying to be in the un declaration of human rights it's simply a power grab well very important thing to keep in mind too is that the agreement that currently exists is just completely unsustainable for wisconsin's budget i mean it's part of what's responsible for the three point six billion dollars budget hole and there are not a lot of places that they can make those cuts in one area simply to ask public sector. employees just step up in start to to give back

a little i mean asking to step up plenty but if you cut plenty of other private organizations have also done this in so far as you have layoffs i mean people everyone across the across the country have had to step up and do something to allow themselves to continue surviving through this difficult time and what and all you know scott walker is asking he's not he's not demolishing the unions themselves what he's saying is just pay more into your own health benefits pay more if you had to do you don't have any kind of bargaining rights that's that's kind of demolishing it well not only that let's get to this issue of the budget deficit because the fiscal bureau which is like the non partisan center for fiscal information some of which actually got it i must be. going to my censorship yeah the fiscal bureau said that there was a one hundred twenty seven million dollar surplus before scott walker decided to give tax breaks to wal-mart and a bunch of his other corporate cronies so to say that that this is simply unsustainable is simply untrue not only that because they're taking weekly

departing rates you can lose seventy million dollars in federal money that's tied to some of these issues this is quite frankly a violation of international law and it just screams for america to scrape through the american dream i do find it interesting that scott walker hasn't mentioned even once and i have seen a statistic so also that there was going to be a budget surplus and then thanks to a few pieces of legislation that passed after you know it took office. that's why there is now a budget problem well there was also there were as there were several other problems were before scott walker did this tax thing one was that growth was abysmal in wisconsin the desire was to attract jobs from wisconsin so that you didn't have people leaving in droves you know attending the university of wisconsin and then leaving to go someplace else where they could actually get jobs and said is this going to fix that situation if you tell public sector employees that they have no bargaining rights in unions is that supposed to attract that's going to track workers as much as getting adults to believe in santa claus it just doesn't make any sense but the point is actually is to reduce. reliance on taxpayers the

burden the taxpayers have to have in supporting public sector unions and allowing more of the private sector to thrive if you think that the only place where job creation ought to be taking place in wisconsin is in the public sector yeah you'd be totally against this but if you're for growing in the private sector which is really the best and most stable way this is the place to do it my question is how much of a burden do public sector unions really place on the taxpayer considering that union membership has been dropping over the years that only about eleven percent of americans are even in unions well actually about thirty five percent of the public sector is in the news because there's not a legal union busting that i think that's popular as opposed to seven percent of the private sector because thirty thousand people you're fired from their jobs. but the issue here at stake is that public employees according to the bureau of labor statistics in wisconsin make six percent less than the private sector counterparts this is quite simply a lie that they make more and i've yet to see any credible methodology come out of

any right wing think tank disputing you know the bureau of labor statistics numbers i have yet to see any methodology so i don't know where people were coming up with these statistics claiming that public workers make more because you know i was talking to a child care worker in illinois the other way we could be making making sixty thousand a year and that's before you get into the touch again it is important to note though that particularly when we talk about about these studies of how much public sector employees make the often don't count in the kinds of benefits that they receive for instance the taxpayer subsidized health care the taxpayer subsidized defined bed benefit pensions that cushy retirements for these people so there is sort of a tradeoff here the problem is that it's too much of a benefit that these public sector unions are doing at taxpayer expense my question here is you know everyone is making this debate about the figures but i also want to ask about the message that scott walker is sending here i mean what does he mean when he says that the national guard has been put on alert in the case you know of any disruptions that might happen if you. look back at the history of this country

you look at some of the clashes between workers and the national guards these are this is a there's a bloody past a violent past to this so what are you i mean i would i would i want the national guard i don't know i would tell you know the national guard would actually be doing it i don't i wouldn't assume that the national guard is going to do it but i badly want some states that sends what kind of president the last time a national guard was called in wisconsin one hundred thirty four five workers were killed now j.p. here was one of the founders of the tea party helped organize one of the first tea party events here in washington and the tea party message is don't tread on me you know free markets how is it free markets when you bring in the military to prevent people from expressing their voice on the job but this isn't about suppression back to your earlier point so it's a purely quickly though when did the tea party ever protest for five days straight maybe camped out somewhere because i think there's a lot of them have jobs that say that's the thing i mean these people are actually being subsidized by taxpayers they're using their sick leave and getting paid while they're on protests that's not very brave actually how many jobs out there any day and they have a lot of other people don't have jobs how many other states are going to see this

right now when there are twelve other states with the right to work legislation on the table there are a lot of other states out there that have budget woes so how big could this get i thought you seen in ohio there was five thousand people at the state capitol yesterday there were a couple hundred people in michigan there's dozens of protest over wisconsin there was something like fifty thousand people there today and they're claiming they're not going to go but they're going to stay there for weeks if they need to experience subsidies so it actually works out pretty well for them it's a vacation mike i want to ask you this question do you know why did people decide to come out three days before they knew that this vote was going to happen didn't scott walker say you know while he was campaigning before he was elected that this was part of his plan why did you wait until the very very last minute well actually a lot of politicians see things during campaigns and they don't believe them eliminate a collective bargaining rights of public employees in wisconsin is so on heard of that everybody just thought this was false campaign rhetoric the fact that he decided you know isn't it isn't that the people's fault the voters fault the residents. wisconsin but to the credit of

a lot of the union organizers i've talked in the last couple days on the ground they've been organizing for months and you have never seen a mobilization of this level really since the great depression of union members like this i mean they were literally bringing the business community in wisconsin is starting to come out and said we should take republican police right to quickly bargain the chair of the chamber of commerce in milwaukee was on wisconsin public radio the other day saying this isn't an issue the issues are or some other issues but this isn't one that we have a position on so i don't understand why right we're seeing. what i know we're going to wrap it up so if you have anything any parting words well what's really important here is that taxpayers have a right to see how their money is being spent they're the ones that are actually paying for all this and if they voted in a republican legislature and a republican governor to change how this how this how these unions function i think that's fine and they should get that i will definitely going to keep following this because like i said it looks like it's spreading from one state to another and you have politicians from both aisles coming out and definitely making their stance

clear general thanks for being here thank you for having us now still to come on tonight's show more violent clashes today across the middle east from the traders. will have an update on that in just a moment and then the f.b.i. they want lawmakers to make it even easier for them to eavesdrop and wiretap internet communications but is anybody care that our civil liberties are being trampled on yet again declan mccullagh chief political correspondent for c.b.s. joins us and. will. remain you the latest in science technology from the grounds that. we. are very. wealthy british style.

market why not. why don't what's really happening to the global economy with my stronger no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. watch. protests unrest continue in the middle east today and today they've taken a more violent turn we start in bahrain where protests from earlier in the week left. in a day when ten thousand people came out for his funeral chanting for change the police opened fire on the protesters now as the latest reports from the main hospital in bahrain's capital manama sixty six people are severely injured with gunshot wounds to the chest and to the head protesters described the scene as being

filled with tear gas and confusion continues as shots were fired into the crowd and people were slipping in pools of blood as they tried to run to safety now meanwhile there is also unrest going on in libya are reports have been a little unclear on twitter people are saying that the state has blocked all media access and that they've turned off the internet and facebook is down now it's difficult to get the information but there are reports of people from the towns of tripoli in benghazi taking to the streets to demand their leaders stepped out soldiers were deployed to the cities information has leaked out that at least twenty four people have died after being gunned down by security forces and tweets are saying that the people of flocked to the airport to prevent president gadhafi and his troops from fleeing the country now we can turn our attention to yemen where tensions are rising between anti-government protesters and president sali supporters of the people hurled chunks of concrete at each other soldiers were dressed in riot gear sending shots into the air to disperse the crowds and the clashes. spread to several cities in yemen it's report of

a few deaths and there are several people injured but they all claim one common goal that these states must halt so one thing that's killing her and the people in the middle east are craving change and they're willing to fight for. fed chief ben bernanke he expressed his concern over or new threat to the global economy and financial stability while he was speaking in paris to bank of france conference it's all the head of the meeting of g twenty finance ministers and the chairman said that the uneven flow of funds into the u.s. from two thousand and three to two thousand and seven was one of the key factors to let that lead to the financial meltdown in two thousand and eight he also warned that capital flows are now once again posing some notable challenges but while defending his own at q e two policy that injected six hundred billion dollars into markets he said the countries with excessive and unsustainable trade surpluses will need to allow their exchange rates to better reflect market fundamentals now

without specifically naming china i think it's still pretty clear who he was referring to but if the finger pointing continues for who the greater currency manipulator is is there a real chance for any solution to be agreed upon joining me from our studio in new york to discuss it is r t s financial correspondent lauren lyster lauren thanks so much for joining us now he gave this speech at a conference in for the bank of france before the g. twenty so is this supposed to be just a little preedy twenty the message that everyone is really clear what america stands for is. well i think it was burning pretty much defending himself against criticism that we've seen internationally over quantitative easing going into this g. twenty we saw this criticism be an issue going into the last g. twenty with not just countries like china being very critical of the u.s. policies but countries like germany developed nations as well that have been critical of the effect that quantitative easing this six hundred billion dollar.

program has had on international capital flows flowing into other markets and raising the value of their currencies in a way that countries don't want to benefit them meanwhile driving the dollar down it's been a criticism that has been thrown against bernanke since last year twenty and we've seen even recently with the egypt uprising being blamed on higher food prices and pundits conservative commentators saying that that was all related to quantitative easing driving up the prices of food so i think amidst all of this criticism this was him coming out saying hey you know not directly addressing that criticism but saying countries have plenty tools of their own to deal with these inflationary pressures to deal with the rise in asset prices and saying you know hey countries that are not you know that are pegging their money maybe to the dollar which he didn't say all right but when he's talking about adjusting exchange rates that's what he's referring to such as has been the case in china so without directly

addressing these issues you seem to be indirectly casting blame on countries like china and deflecting them from the united states and his policies did you find it kind of interesting that he didn't actually china it's not like u.s. officials have been scared of actually picking china out and pointing the finger directly at them so today why didn't even throw that into the speech. well you kind of have seen this song and dance where at times different officials and politicians will come out and say that china needs to adjust their currency and stop undervaluing it which is what they see china is doing but then you always see the u.s. backing down from officially calling china a currency manipulator so there always is this kind of song and dance that goes on but when bernanke is talking about countries adjusting their exchange rates he's essentially accusing china of doing what in essence the u.s. is doing what that's. and it is easing when when it's affecting the value of the

dollar by increasing the money supply by printing or making more available a lot more cash which is what you could argue china has done keeping their currency pegged to the dollar but how worried should really should we really be when he goes back to the reasons that one of the key factors he says that caused the financial meltdown in two thousand and eight and he says that again we see capital flows increasing is that really a big concern could it get to the same point again. well even where we see a lot of that concern right now according to reports and analysts i've spoken to and just kind of the numbers are where commodity prices and asset prices are going up and this is particularly of concern with food well we've seen commodities and oil all increase i mean we've seen food prices hit record levels so that's really where it's been an area of concern and where we've seen that even be blamed in part on the egypt uprising that that had to do with rising food prices and so that's

something that governments are all concerned about because that is where we're seeing kind of these record numbers and which is affected very much by this speculation which is not the only issue i mean these are multifaceted issues and particularly with food there are issues of weather and other factors that go into these prices that have affected it but but also speculation and the effect of monetary policy is part of it definitely seems like inflation is becoming a growing concern though globally we know that china india have already raised their interest rates i know there's a lot of pressure on britain to do the same right now but when we look at the u.s. and our national debt which of course happens to be soaring out of the debt ceiling which our lawmakers are going to have to vote on this year is that a concern that's usually brought up at these g. twenty meetings is that something that globally is discussed. interestingly the analysts that i've spoken to ahead of this g. twenty don't think it's going to be a very big. dealer

a very hot topic they see quantitative easing as being much more likely to be a key issue and to be a hot topic among the international community they say that right now the deficit and the debt are not too much of a hot topic to discuss internationally that there is still demand for u.s. debt but that the issue of quantitative easing and that the u.s. monetary policy has been that has been a key issue that that internationally the community is very concerned about they're concerned about what it's doing to asset prices to the values of their currencies especially in emerging markets and developing nations that are hot markets right now were a lot of this money has gone so that is really seen as a much more key issue probably much more taking over any kind of talk about the deficit or the u.s. debt internationally at the g. twenty right now. i want to switch gears just for a minute you know since we're talking about ben bernanke you also know that the fed is going to put out new regulations when it comes to some of the fees that banks

can charge when it comes to transactions like every time that you swipe your debit card and from what i understand there are some bankers on capitol hill yesterday and they're really unhappy about this can you tell us more. yeah you know it seems like every time that the fed ever tries to do anything or that lawmakers ever try to put out any more regulations you just always see this end up affecting the customers as opposed to the people that it's supposed to actually hurt or the businesses or industries it's supposed to really rein in i mean in this case these are rules that affect the amount that banks can get from people swiping their debit cards the amount of money that they can get from merchants when whenever a customer does that and they're trying to really lower those and of course banks are creating quite a firestorm saying that they can't even afford to do this business it doesn't cover the price of the costs if you're going to lower what they are able to get from each purchase and saying also mentally this. it's going to be passed on to the customers

and addition a lot of these rules they're saying are affecting other perks that they give to customers such as free checking or other perks that they're able to give to the public ultimately saying that hey if you give us these rules we're just going to have to pass them along to the customers and even though you're trying to rein us in as an industry what it will ultimately do is hurt average americans which is i know obviously here that directed against you like we hear that all the time right the banks that are making record profits can't afford to do some things though it's us the customers are going to suffer how pleasant lauren thanks so much for phone us and. now the protests have spread as workers in wisconsin struggle to keep from losing their union rights workers and other parts of the u.s. are finding creative ways to organize themselves without paying those union dues ford has more now workers are coming together and leaving the unions in the dust.

isn't exactly union material if michael when they mix in immigrant what are you moving this those with me when i came to the united states she was only five years old now she's sixteen my daughter mariana a seasonal worker scraping by on multiple part time job so when she watched her managers at the cheesecake factory disrespect workers and sexually harassed their employees. had cameras to watch everything if you've been picked up a piece of bread but the cameras never sold those types of things and that's in justice she have little recourse until united workers knocked on her door founded by homeless daily words and run out of a former firehouse united workers isn't a union we're trying to build a movement to end poverty that's led by the poor it's a collective of three thousand low wage workers from all walks of life in baltimore a major shift in our economy from manufacturing to the service sector economy.

that's you know. you know poverty wages they're seasonal part time lack of benefits and they pose real challenges great never thought of joining a union until he was fired from his job at e.s.p.n. zone and decided to take on its own or walt disney only one of. the. we. know not so he banded together with workers like raquel and baltimore's inner harbor we were like. oh you have. to rework all of the food we will both of. you have a. developer with united workers tackled a public baseball stadium a victory tonight at camden yards but we're not talking about the orioles and successfully raise wages from four fifty to eleven thirty in our. across the country workers are leaving the unions behind last year unions lost ten percent of

their members the largest drop in twenty five years unions are less powerful right now and less sort of willing to shake up the apple cart instead workers are organizing themselves to push for reform and no unions means no bloated hierarchy no an affordable dues no close ties to washington at the expense of real pressure for reform i believe the unions in virginia tenants of workers united has scooped up workers left behind by women who work as domestics day laborers probably taxi drivers who are considered independent contractors all these folks thousands if not millions of folks are excluded so that bet that's another sort of piece that i do not covered by basic labor law yet they don't have a mechanism at this point for coming together the a.f.l.-cio donated more than fifty million dollars worth of its members dues and two hundred fifty thousand of its workers to support president obama but three years later as big unions fail to deliver on their promises and struggle to fight for the right they've long held

people are becoming disillusioned and as workers begin to organize themselves it may be big unions who are left behind in ford artsy washington d.c. . all right taking a break but still to come tonight a conservative pundit lands in our tool time segment over her comments on snap a lot more on that we come back and the f.b.i. is trying to grab more power to make it easier for them to ease drop and wiretap internet communications but what about your privacy declan mccullagh chief political correspondent for c that joins us interest among.

these grand nutritious and religious products on the price of healthy eating. we need to test these foods toxicity allergenicity immune response lower nutrition and for environmental contamination don't you feel like a lab rat so consider the experiment each human treatment i had the significant differences between the g.m. fact that they both had their own g.m. . but they weren't treated so well themselves one question means one carrier if you ask one question you could be uncertain and you might or might not be able to publish it but that's the end of your career.

this is also you coming to life from the headline. unsavory alliance you knew we could lead to disclosure exposes us spying on top of the shoals and how it's affecting the organizations relations with russia the documents as an agent in the office of secretary general under a slow rasmussen report is confidential information back to washington some of the diplomatic cables reveal how america is trying to control their lives from within. shock waves in the greater middle east with more and to government protests erupting in bahrain yemen jordan levy and in bahrain troops fired on a crowd injuring at least fifty after thousands gathered during friday prayers the u.k. has now revoked some export licenses out of concern that weapons supplied to bahraini

authorities could be used against protesters and. our researchers make a second space we're going to virtual and martian surface as part of a simulated eighteen month old mission the moscow based mars five hundred program has just passed its calm way vog scientists are monitoring the volunteers to one day enable a manned mission to the red planet. now back to the i want to show up to a major u.s. conservative organization decided to vet members to prevent gays from joining the takes a look at whether homophobia will play a large part in next year's presidential elections. are a good time for tonight's tool time award and it goes to conservative pundits and coulter she was on m.s.n. b c is low.